Oakland Authorities, Business Owners Worry About More Protests

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — The city of Oakland was cleaning up Friday after a night of disruptive protests as officials and business owners expressed concerns over more unrest to come.

Thousands turned out Thursday night to stand against two deadly police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota this week.

A crowd estimated at around 2,000 people gathered in downtown Oakland to protest the recent police shootings, marching through the streets, taking over Frank Ogawa Plaza and gathering outside of the Oakland Police Department on Broadway.

Someone painted the word “murderers” on the door of Oakland police headquarters.

A small breakaway group of protesters got violent, smashing the windows at a Foot Locker store on Broadway that are now boarded up.

The Smart and Final store a few blocks away got the same treatment. That broken window resulted in one arrest for burglary and bottles thrown at officers resulted in two arrests, according to police.

Graffiti on a window at the Chase Bank branch at 14th Street and Broadway and graffiti on columns in the 1000 block of Broadway resulted in one arrest and one citation, police said.

But it was the chaotic scene of protesters walking up freeway ramps and narrowly avoiding being hit as they shut down I-880 that has people all over the East Bay concerned.

The crowd of about 1,000 protesters shut down 880 in both directions, chanting “Black lives matter!” The CHP couldn’t stop them.

“Once it’s in a crowd that large, it takes us an amount of time to formulate a plan so that we can do it safely,” said CHP Officer Henry Schultz.

The protesters blocked traffic for four hours, climbing onto a big rig, occupying all lanes of traffic. I-880 was reopened at about 1:15 a.m. Friday morning.

His advice to drivers? Don’t engage with the protestors on the freeway.

“If you can by all means maybe steer clear of the area tonight because there could possibly be more activity,” said Schultz.

In addition, there was a small fire on a Caltrans sign board on I-880 according to police.

No injuries were reported, police said.

Three people were arrested for failure to obey orders to disperse on the freeway. Five people were arrested and one person was given a citation for vandalism in Oakland.

There may be more arrests pending as police identify more suspects from surveillance camera footage.